Parenting your parents.......
Watching our parents grow old is hard. Its not that it brings me face to face with the inevitable as I see my aging face in my moms or my dad's mother's face in his. No its coming to terms with the fact that I am no longer a little girl. I still want to be one, I still want the freedom that youth affords us but the mortgage payments, childbirth and marriage strip that away. Its not that I don't love my husband or kids, I do, more then I can believe possible, its that the sense of me, the very individuality I worked so hard to achieve is just a component of so many different aspects of the lives I juggle.
My folks have been away for 3 months, I hate not having them around the corner, there is a certain sense of order when they are here. With them here I have a backup plan, pick up a kid if I can't make it, make a meal if I am unable to, watch a sickly child so I can work. Grandma's (or Gugga as my kids call her) chicken soup cures eveything. My, that woman can cook. They go above and beyond. Watching my kids EVERY weekend so that my kids can experience camp Ruth (another of my mom's names, this one bestowed on her by her parents), she has endless energy and keeps the kids crafting or at the gym or cooking just being busy, trying to keep up with her. she takes them to the park and exhausts the kids. I wish I had a tenth of her energy. I don't, nowhere near.
Moving here has been so hard on them both financially and emotionally. They are enjoying the ready access to their kids and grandkids especially after many of their friends have joined the chicken run and headed off to live near their kids in Australia. My how history repeats itself, its so sad, a lost generation in South Africa, we have not had a full generation live their, my grandparents came from Europe, I left for America followed by my folks and then my older sister. My younger sister still remains there, maybe one member of our family will be in South Africa until her time comes to an end. One person left from so many, so many generations, so many cousins, her and one cousin. 11 first cousins, their growing families all spread around. My folks have found it harder then me, my kids have been the gateway to my social life, I have been less successful in meeting people my own age let alone my parents age. But they have carved out a great group, they are dynamic, magnetic people, but America is not home, its so very far from home in so many ways besides distance.
Everytime they leave, I am struck by how much older my dad looks on his return, it does not help that he has managed to break a rib, fracture his coccyx and to top it off he has an abcess on his gum. The poor man is in agony, his trip to Australia unbelievably trying topped only by his around the world trip to NY, my poor daddy has been througha war with his own body, I am stuck facing my loss of youth I can only imagine how hard it is for him to bear. Feel better dad. Real soon.
My folks have been away for 3 months, I hate not having them around the corner, there is a certain sense of order when they are here. With them here I have a backup plan, pick up a kid if I can't make it, make a meal if I am unable to, watch a sickly child so I can work. Grandma's (or Gugga as my kids call her) chicken soup cures eveything. My, that woman can cook. They go above and beyond. Watching my kids EVERY weekend so that my kids can experience camp Ruth (another of my mom's names, this one bestowed on her by her parents), she has endless energy and keeps the kids crafting or at the gym or cooking just being busy, trying to keep up with her. she takes them to the park and exhausts the kids. I wish I had a tenth of her energy. I don't, nowhere near.
Moving here has been so hard on them both financially and emotionally. They are enjoying the ready access to their kids and grandkids especially after many of their friends have joined the chicken run and headed off to live near their kids in Australia. My how history repeats itself, its so sad, a lost generation in South Africa, we have not had a full generation live their, my grandparents came from Europe, I left for America followed by my folks and then my older sister. My younger sister still remains there, maybe one member of our family will be in South Africa until her time comes to an end. One person left from so many, so many generations, so many cousins, her and one cousin. 11 first cousins, their growing families all spread around. My folks have found it harder then me, my kids have been the gateway to my social life, I have been less successful in meeting people my own age let alone my parents age. But they have carved out a great group, they are dynamic, magnetic people, but America is not home, its so very far from home in so many ways besides distance.
Everytime they leave, I am struck by how much older my dad looks on his return, it does not help that he has managed to break a rib, fracture his coccyx and to top it off he has an abcess on his gum. The poor man is in agony, his trip to Australia unbelievably trying topped only by his around the world trip to NY, my poor daddy has been througha war with his own body, I am stuck facing my loss of youth I can only imagine how hard it is for him to bear. Feel better dad. Real soon.
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